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At the time, it was touted that the cutting-edge facility would be the largest building in the world by footprint, and that the Gigafactory would single-handedly be capable of doubling the world’s lithium-ion battery production Capacity.

What many did not realize, however, is that although as ambitious and as forward-looking as the project sounded, the Gigafactory was just the start of a trend towards scale in the battery-making space. While Tesla’s facility was the most publicized, it would ultimately be one of many massive factories in the global pipeline.

Mastering scale

Today’s data comes to us from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence and it forecasts that we will see a 399% increase in lithium-ion battery production capacity over the next decade—enough to pass the impressive 1 TWh milestone.

Here is a more detailed projection of how things will shape up in the coming decade:

Region

Capacity (GWh, 2018)

Capacity (GWh, 2023)

Capacity (GWh, 2028)

Grand total

220.5

658

1,102.5

China

134.5

405

631

Europe

19.6

93.5

207

North America

20.9

81

148

Other

0

0

5

Asia (excl China)

45.5

78.5

111.5

In just a decade, lithium-ion battery megafactories around the world will have a combined production capacity equivalent to 22 Tesla Gigafactories!

The majority of this capacity will be located in China, which is projected to have 57% of the global total.

The top plants globally

According to Benchmark, the top 10 megafactories will be combining for 299 GWh of capacity in 2023, which will be equal to almost half of the global production total.

Here are the top 10 plants, sorted by projected capacity:

Rank

Megafactory

Owner

Country

Forecasted capacity by 2023 (GWh)

#1

CATL

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Ltd

China

50

#2

Tesla Gigafactory 1

Tesla Inc/Panasonic Corp (25%)

US

50

#3

Nanjing LG Chem New Energy Battery Co. Ltd.

LG Chem

China

35

#4

Nanjing LG Chem New Energy Battery Co. Ltd. Plant 2

LG Chem

China

28

#5

Samsung SDI Xian

Samsung SDI

China

25

#6

Funeng Technology

Funeng Technology (Ganzhou)

China

25

#7

BYD , Qinghai

BYD Co Ltd

China

24

#8

LG Chem Wroclaw Energy Sp. z o.o.

LG Chem

Poland

22

#9

Samsung SDI Korea

Samsung SDI

Korea

20

#10

Lishen

TianJin Lishen Battery Joint-Stock Co. Ltd.

China

20

Of the top 10 megafactory plants in 2023, the majority will be located in China—meanwhile the U.S. (Tesla Gigafactory), South Korea (Samsung) and Poland (LG Chem) will be home to the rest.

Reaching economies of scale in lithium-ion battery production will be a significant step in decreasing the overall cost of electric vehicles, which are expected to surpass traditional vehicles in market share by 2038.